{"id":1905,"date":"2016-09-18T13:11:43","date_gmt":"2016-09-18T17:11:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/?p=1905"},"modified":"2016-09-18T13:11:43","modified_gmt":"2016-09-18T17:11:43","slug":"25th-sunday-in-ordinary-time-year-c-homily-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/25th-sunday-in-ordinary-time-year-c-homily-2\/","title":{"rendered":"25th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year C – Homily"},"content":{"rendered":"

25th<\/sup> Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year C<\/a>
\nAmos 8:4-7
\nPsalm 113:1-2, 4-6, 7-8
\n1 Timothy 2:1-8
\nLuke 16:1-13<\/p>\n

Jesus tells the parable of the steward who was fired for squandering his master\u2019s property.\u00a0 The very purpose of a \u201csteward\u201d is to manage well the owner\u2019s property.<\/p>\n

Of course, Jesus tells this parable to direct us in how we live as Christians.\u00a0 God has blessed us with various gifts.\u00a0 We are free to choose to do whatever we want we with them but if we want to be good disciples, then we need to be good stewards of what God has given us.\u00a0 This means not to squander away what God has given us.\u00a0 It also means not to use our gifts just for our own gain but for the building up of God\u2019s kingdom.<\/p>\n

We each have different gifts.\u00a0 Do you use yours for good?<\/p>\n

Just to give a couple of examples in our parish, I\u2019ll mention our Finance Council.\u00a0 It is made up of people with financial backgrounds to help us make sure we use what you have contributed to the parish well.\u00a0 We have our new Building and Grounds made up of an engineer, a carpenter, and a safety manager who also use their experience to help us.\u00a0 On a different note, we have all the people who are good at making crafts who make stuff for our bazaar.\u00a0 Then, there are the people who made the cookies for my presentation last week to whom I say thank you.\u00a0 They also cook for our funeral receptions.<\/p>\n

I could continue but I want to focus on a particular group.\u00a0 Today is Catechetical Sunday.\u00a0 A catechist is one who teaches others about our faith.\u00a0 This weekend our first group of catechists go to work as our faith formation programs for children start.\u00a0 The second group is our RCIA catechists who teach those who wish to join our church about what it means to be Catholic.<\/p>\n

We should be, at least I know I am, thankful for these volunteers who as good stewards use the skills and knowledge that God has given them to share the faith with others.<\/p>\n

If you go and read the Canon Law of our Church or the Catechism you will see that for children, the parents<\/em> are the ones who hold the primary responsibility for teaching their children about the faith.<\/p>\n

This is because parents are the ones who spend every day with their children.\u00a0 You see, teaching children about our faith is not just a question of classroom teaching.\u00a0 Teaching children about our faith means praying together as a family.\u00a0 It means coming to church.\u00a0 It means teaching children how to bless themselves with the holy water when they enter a church.<\/p>\n

Then, as they grow comes the \u201cclassroom\u201d teaching.\u00a0 Here, the church does not expect parents to do this on their own.\u00a0 Here, our Church says that the parish must help the parents teach their children.\u00a0 If you read Canon Law, it says one of my primary responsibilities as pastor is to see to the catechesis of the people.<\/p>\n

The homily is an important part of this.\u00a0 It is the one opportunity I have to address everyone who comes to Mass.\u00a0 I also try to help people grow in faith through the presentations that I do and through my website.<\/p>\n

The two groups that most need catechesis are, of course, the children and those new to our faith.\u00a0 It is very important that as a parish, we take our responsibility here very seriously.<\/p>\n

It is my responsibility to see to this but I can\u2019t do it myself.\u00a0 For the RCIA program we are so fortunate as to have a few people who lead the sessions and a core team and a leader who run the program as volunteers.<\/p>\n

For the faith formation of our children and youth, we have a program that is coordinated by June Sherman who runs these programs full-time.\u00a0 To make the programs possible, she relies on our volunteers who teach several of the classes and lead our Children\u2019s Liturgy of the Word sessions.<\/p>\n

We count on these volunteers to make our faith formation programs possible.\u00a0 It would be difficult to have our children\u2019s, youth, or RCIA programs without them.\u00a0 We need to thank them for what they do.<\/p>\n

I also want thank everyone who volunteers as a good steward in our parish.\u00a0 I mentioned some earlier.\u00a0 There are others.\u00a0 To all I say thank you.<\/p>\n

If you aren\u2019t volunteering in our parish or in our community, pray about what you might do.\u00a0 If you aren\u2019t able to volunteer because of age, illness, or disability there are still two things you can do.\u00a0 First, live our faith in ways that others can see and pray for others to come forward as good stewards of what they have been given.<\/p>\n

May we all be good stewards of what God has given us so that the world comes to know God\u2019s kingdom and his will be done.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

25th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year C Amos 8:4-7 Psalm 113:1-2, 4-6, 7-8 1 Timothy 2:1-8 Luke 16:1-13 Jesus tells the parable of the steward who was fired for squandering his master\u2019s property.\u00a0 The very purpose of a \u201csteward\u201d is to manage well the owner\u2019s property. Of course, Jesus tells this parable to direct us …<\/p>\n

Continue reading ‘25th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year C – Homily’ »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[82,49],"tags":[191,128],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pMTPk-uJ","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1905"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1905"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1905\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1906,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1905\/revisions\/1906"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1905"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1905"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1905"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}